Wealthy Bastards
by Brunette
Summary: AU. While at Hamunaptra, Beni and Warden Gad happen upon the treasure chamber. Intent on keeping it to themselves, they devise a plan to lift all of the treasure out from under the noses of their fellow explorers and the Med-Jai. Unfortunately, their plan is precarious, partners are inevitable, and they're forced to trust the dirtiest liars they know: each other.
1. blue gold

_Author's Note. I was recently thinking about the fact that I've most enjoyed writing Beni ("What a shock!" said no one ever), Izzy, the Warden and Dr. Chamberlain. So I thought it'd be fun/interesting to do a comedy putting them in the primary roles of an AU where maybe they get the opportunity to "win" a little._

_Disclaimer: The characters of _The Mummy_ and _The Mummy Returns_ are the property of Universal Studios__. _

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**WEALTHY BASTARDS**

**blue gold.**

The smell of acid-burnt flesh was still hot and sickening in Beni's nostrils, even though he'd left that awful room quite a while ago. He knew better than to go wandering through the labrynth of passages in Hamunaptra's belly, but he'd taken a wrong turn in his haste to leave the room, and now he was here. His eyes darted all about the dark hallway, jumping every time he heard that strange skittering overhead. The whole place must be infested with rats...or very big bugs. Maybe scorpions. He shivered, and kept walking.

He'd made a point to slip out before anyone could coerce him into helping with the bodies of those diggers...and this was where that got him. Lost.

He took a turn, and suddenly he noticed a faint glow at the end of the hall. He squinted. He didn't feel close to the entrance...but he definitely saw a light ahead. He frowned, and pulled the revolver from his holster. Just in case.

He snuck quietly down the hallway, staying close to the wall as he crept along, the light all the time getting stronger. He saw the shadow of a man against the wall, and then heard a strange, yelling noise. Beni gasped and let out a little yelp. The shadow jerked, startled.

"Who is there?" someone demanded.

Beni let out a sigh that was both annoyed and relieved; "Gad?"

"Yes!" he said frantically.

Beni stepped into the light, and Gad's wide eyes narrowed immediately. He crossed his arms over his chest and glared.

"What are you doing, sneaking up on me like this?" Gad demanded.

Beni scoffed. "I was not sneaking up on you. I got lost."

Gad let out a dismissive snort. "Well. You can keep getting lost."

Beni made no move to leave, glancing from Gad to the wall curiously. "What were you yelling about?"

Gad exaggerated a nonchalant expression, self-consciously clutching his satchel close to his body. "I was not yelling."

"Yes, you were."

Beni turned away from the warden as he continued to deny making any such noise, and focused his attention on the wall. His brow furrowed, and he reached a hand up to one of the blue stone beetles inlaid into a carving of a man. He reached a few fingers up to touch the dark, faintly glittery surface, but Gad quickly swatted them away.

"Hey! Go find your own!"

Beni glared at him. "My own what? What do you think it is? It is too dark to be lapis - "

"It's blue gold, and it's mine."

"There is no such thing as blue gold."

"Obviously, it is extremely rare," Gad spat back. "And I found it first. And it is mine. Go get your own."

Beni gave him an ugly sneer and then promptly ignored him, turning back to the wall in vague interest. He didn't know what the beetles were made of, but they certainly fascinated him, and _looked_ valuable. Someone had taken the time to inlay them into the wall, so they must be worth something. Absentmidndedly, he pulled his knife from his pocket and flicked open the blade, ready to pry one of those stones from the wall -

"Hey!" Gad shouted, his chubby little hand grasping Beni's arm with impatient ferocity. "I said - "

But the words escaped into the depths of a sudden, painful scream. Beni whirled around to Gad in surprise, but the warden wasn't paying any attention to him. He was grasping at his leg frantically, ripping the pant leg down its seam. Beni's eyes widened to see a strange lump rippling under Gad's skin, scurrying quickly up his leg.

"Do something! Kill it!" Gad was shouting.

"What!"

"Do something!"

Beni took a few steps back. Gad's eyes widened in desperate anger and fear. "Damn it, you coward! Your knife!"

Beni held out the knife with a trembling hand, immediately snapping his arm away when Gad snatched it from him. The bug had made it up to his thigh, and without a thought, the warden plunged the knife into his hairy skin and flicked the beetle from his leg.

"Holy shit!" Beni shouted. "Are they all like that?"

Gad shook his head, throwing the knife at the bug. It landed softly in the sand next to the beetle. "I don't know!" He quickly pulled the satchel from his body and threw it on the ground, too.

"Well kill it!" Beni said in a voice that almost screetched.

"What do you think I'm trying to do?" Gad's wide eyes suddenly found the gun on Beni's hip. "You have a gun!"

"What?"

Gad let out a frustrated stream of Arabic and reached for Beni's holster, yanking out the gun. He fired five or six times before hitting the damned bug, and then breathed a shaking sigh. He reached for his handkerchief and wiped the nervous beads of sweat from his face. He turned and looked at Beni, but his anxious eyes were fastened to the satchel, which had suddenly started moving...

With a yell, Gad grasped hold of his torch and threw it at the satchel. It exploded in a booming burst of flames.

Beni let out a cry of surprise. "Holy shit! What did you have in there, dynamite?"

Gad let out a weary sigh. "Scotch."

"That is most unfortunate."

Gad nodded his head in solemn agreement. He glanced at Beni out of the corner of his eye, a distasteful wrinkle setting itself in his lip.

"You have got to be the most useless person to have around in a crisis."

Beni's eyes narrowed. He held out his hand. "Give me back my gun."

Gad handed it over, and Beni examined the cylinder with a scowl. "You are a terrible shot. How many of my bullets did it take to kill it?"

"It was a bug," Gad retorted. "It was moving."

"It was as big as my hand."

"Well, I would like to see you hit it in one shot."

Beni let out a disgruntled sigh and shoved the gun back in its holster. "Get my knife."

Gad raised his eyebrows. "Get your own damned knife."

Beni pursed his lips, crossing his arms over his chest. "You would be dead if it was not for me and my knife. Get it."

Gad's eyes narrowed, but he grumbled a sigh and picked up the knife from the ground, handing it to Beni.

"'Thank you, Beni,'" the thief said with a mocking sneer, folding the blade back into the handle and slipping it into his pocket.

The warden grumbled something like a thank you, and let out a sigh, glancing up and down the hallway dismally.

"So how do we get out of here?"

Beni shrugged. "The hell if I know. I was just trying to get out myself."

They surveyed that same stretch of hallway again, and Beni said. "I came from that way."

Gad sighed. "Well I came from the other way."

They deliberated for a moment longer, before at last deciding to just go in one direction until they hit a dead end. "There are probably twenty-five people in here. We are bound to meet somebody," Gad said, though he didn't sound entirely convinced, and both of them walked with a quiet anxiety that company couldn't assuage. The flames of their torches flickered against hieroglyphs and carvings that were unfamiliar, but looked familiar, and then didn't seem familiar at all. They kept their arms close to their bodies and froze every time a skittering hoard of bugs screetched overhead.

There was no telling how long they wandered; it felt like hours to both of them, but it probably wasn't more than thirty minutes before they caught sight of a strange kind of glow just around the corner. They looked at one another and frowned.

"Hello?" Gad called out, but no one answered.

"It is not the surface," Beni said unhelpfully. They both already knew that. "It is too cool to be the surface..."

They crept along with cautious, tiptoed steps until at last they arrived at the doorway, and stopped. They took a deep breath, and glanced around the wall curiously, breaths held against any possible, painful booby trap awaiting them. But when they saw what was causing that unnatural glow in the darkness underground, their faces spread with ugly, greedy grins.

"It cannot be," Gad breathed.

Beni slipped past him and walked inside the enormous room. Everywhere, all around him and virtually above him, gold glinted bright and promising back at his torch.

"This is incredible," he whispered.

Gad laughed aloud, hurrying over to the first pile of treasure in his reach and grappling for the finest pieces. Not to be put to shame, Beni rushed over to another pile and began lining his pockets with as much gold as he could fit in them.

It wasn't until his hand had curled around the third or fourth handful that it occurred to him. He turned and looked at Gad, giddily adorning himself in gold chains and crowns and rings.

"How will we keep this from the others?"

Gad stopped, a trinket slipping through his fingers and clattering to the coin-strewn floor. He whirled around and looked at Beni with a frown.

"If we go up there with all of this treasure, they will know," Beni said.

Gad nodded his head slowly, his eyes slipping to the gold, marked by a kind of conflicted disdain.

"You are right, my friend," he said. "Then what do we do?"

Beni rubbed the stubble on his chin thoughtfully, gazing all around the treasure room with narrowed, thoughtful eyes. He could feel Gad watching him anxiously, but he tried to ignore him and focus instead on concocting his plan. Beni Gabor might not have been the most clever man in the world, but when untold riches were involved, he could be motivated to remarkable levels of greatness.

Suddenly, a dark smile crawled up the side of his face, and he let out a self-satisfied laugh.

"I have it," he told Gad.

The warden smiled, and prompted him with wide, urgent eyes. "You do?"

Beni smirked. "Oh, yes. I do."


	2. the a-team

_Author's Note: Whaaaat? An update for this story? (And all the Enchantress followers cried, "Outrage!"). This chapter features a slight reference to _A Good Time_, which I guess makes this a loose-ish sequel. Kinda. We'll just go with that. You don't really need to read that to understand this, though._

_Also, just to be clear, I'm totally with Burns on this one._

_Disclaimer: The characters of _The Mummy_ and _The Mummy Returns_ are the property of Universal Studios__. _

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**WEALTHY BASTARDS**

**the a-team.**

Gad let out a disgruntled sigh and sniffed, crossing his chubby arms over his chest. He raised his eyebrows and stared up at Beni skeptically.

"You really think I can make it all the way back to Cairo on my own?"

Beni scoffed. "Do you know which way is North?"

Gad shrugged.

"Then you can make it back to Cairo."

The warden sighed again, rubbing his chin as a thoughtful and distasteful expression found its way into his rat-like face. "Why can't you do it? I could write you a prison release for Izzy..."

Beni let out a short (but nevertheless nerve-grating) little laugh. "Oh, right. And the prison guards will take _that_ without question..."

Gad grumbled a few Arabic curses that made Beni roll his eyes; the warden cast a glance at his dirty fingernails and shook his head.

"Also you might remember Izzy and I are not on the best of terms right now," Beni added.

Gad's dark eyes found his again. "Yes," he said pointedly, "seeing as how you threw him over to the dogs like a sack of meat."

Beni could only offer a helpless shrug in his own defense. "He would have done the same to me."

Gad's eyes narrowed suspiciously, and he glared up at the other man with a hard, thoughtful look on his face. Beni stared back down at him in mild confusion (or maybe just the appearance of it), and for a moment it was just the two of them in that broad, golden room scrutinizing each other.

"How do I know you are not trying to send me into the desert to die?" the warden demanded.

Beni let out an agonized, impatient sigh. "Oh, _come on,_ Gad! My friend!"

"Don't you start with that 'poor, innocent me' talk. I know what you have been doing, leading people out here to their doom!"

Beni shook his head, his eyes wide and pathetic. "But I would never do such a thing to you, my one and only friend - "

"You have a lot of one and only friends," Gad retorted, his brow still furrowed up in a mean frown. He pointed a fat, accusatory finger at the other man. _"You_ will go and bring Izzy back, since he is so important."

"You know they won't let him out of prison if I go and get him."

"Well you know I don't know how to get back to Cairo."

Beni huffed a sigh, crossing his arms over his chest. He eyed the gold all around him in annoyance. Here he had more treasure than a person could possibly know what to do with, and right at his fingertips...and Gad was being too much of a baby to help him get it. He turned back to the warden seriously, his eyes steeled and fed up:

"Listen. We _both_ need Izzy. He is the one with the flying contraption. He is the only way we will ever lift all of this gold out without anyone else knowing."

"Fine," Gad said evenly. "Then we will both go to Cairo."

Beni gasped, scandalized. "And leave the treasure room where anyone can find it?"

_"Son of a bitch,"_ Gad muttered testily. Beni nodded, obvious and impatient.

"Right? So_ you_ will go to Cairo."

"I don't want to go to Cairo," Gad whined.

Beni raised his eyebrows. "You will go to Cairo. You will release Izzy from prison. I cannot do it. You have to do it."

Gad eyed him irritably for another moment before at last giving in with a sigh. "What am I supposed to tell O'Connell and those stupid Brits?"

Beni gave him a funny look. "Tell them? Why would you tell them anything?"

"Well they will notice if I just leave..."

Beni scoffed. "No, they won't."

Gad crossed his arms over his chest and frowned up at him in offense. "Of course they will. There are only four of us. I am an _integral_ member of the group."

"Ooh, integral. Fancy word," Beni muttered.

"Yes, integral! Do you know what it means, you stupid son of a whore?"

Beni's eyes narrowed. "If you are so 'integral,' why have they not coming looking for you yet?"

Gad straightened his shoulders and puffed up his chest. "Just because they do not want me here, does not mean that I am not integral."

"Fucking integral...do_ you_ know what it means?"

Gad glared up at him. "Maybe you should go to Cairo. No one has come looking for _you,_ either."

"I am the guide," Beni told him superiorly. "They want me here even though they do not want me here. Besides, I thought we decided _you_ were going to Cairo."

"I'm going to Cairo," Gad grumbled. He rubbed the stubble above his lip thoughtfully, and then glanced up at Beni with hard, threatening eyes. "But if I come back with Izzy in that stupid flying contraption only to find that you have already made off with the treasure, I will call in every warrant on your greasy little head!"

Beni glared back down at him. "I am not going anywhere with the treasure."

"You had better not."

"How would I even do that?" Beni demanded, holding his arms out helplessly. "Load up a dozen camels all by myself and then caravan them all back to Cairo? I cannot even get _one_ camel to do as I say - "

"I don't know how you would do it," Gad spat. "But you would find a way, and if you do, I will have you at the other end of a noose faster than you can say - "

"Integral?"

"Oh shut up about integral already."

Beni didn't even try to stifle a laugh as they made their reluctant leave out of their now much-beloved treasure room. They walked in silence down the hall for a moment, and probably against Beni's better judgment, he said suddenly:

"Though you know, in that scenario, I would have enough money to make bail."

Gad's hard little fist connected with his arm. "You little rat! I knew that was your plan!"

Beni let out a yelp and held up his hands. "I have no plan! Gad!"

He dodged the warden's emphatic punches for a few minutes, until he remembered he had a gun. He pulled it from its holster so fast, it almost slipped through his fingers.

"Stop hitting me!" he shouted, a little too high-pitched for being the man with the gun. Gad's fists dropped to his sides, and he eyed the barrel of the pistol testily.

"You are a cheating little coward. You know?"

Beni sniffed, and his grip tightened on the gun. "I know."

Gad's beady glare shifted from the pistol, to Beni, and back to the pistol again. He pressed his lips together thoughtfully, and at last his hands relaxed.

"Tell me again how to get back to Cairo."

Beni slid his gun back into its holster cautiously, and he whispered about directions and landmarks as they meandered their way back to the surface. He didn't like how even the hiss of his quiet tone sent an echo bouncing against the walls, but he couldn't stop it. All he could do was pray that no one was near enough to hear him.

When they made it to the entrance at last, they shook hands, which was the closest thing to a gentleman's agreement the two of them could come up with. Gad lumbered off in search of a camel and loose provisions; Beni watched him from the sparse comfort of the tunnel's shade, and lit a cigarette. The sun had already descended very low on the horizon, and a reasonable part of him wondered if he should tell Gad to wait until morning. Navigating the desert could be treacherous at night. But the bigger part of him - the greedier part of him - decided the warden would manage well enough on his own, and left it at that.

His stomach growled, and he remembered he was hungry before those diggers had melted and deprived him of his appetite. He reached into his pocket for the peanuts he'd been eating earlier, but they were gone. He let out a whiny sigh, reluctant to return to the Americans' campfire. He frowned as he glanced over at their tents, and resigned himself to sneaking some decent food off of them.

Their idiot conversation greeted him long before he reached the fireside.

"Daniels, real quick - which is better? Pancakes or waffles?"

"Pancakes."

"Ho! I_ told_ you, Burns!"

"It ain't really a point 'a fact - "

"You think waffles are better'n pancakes, Burns?"

"Yes. As a matter of fact, I do. But it's just an opinion - "

"What's the matter with you?"

"They're basically the same thing."

"Exactly, only one you can make anywhere in the goddamn world, and the other you need a fancy gridiron for. What's the use in that?"

Beni groaned at the ongoing (stupid) argument taking place just beside the campfire and attempted to scurry past without being noticed.

"It's-it's a texture thing. I like the texture of a waffle better - "

"Ah, hell. 'Texture.'"

"Yes, texture."

Beni slipped over to Mr. Burns' tent. He was both the weakest and the most gracious of his employers, and he could usually bum a couple eggs off of the man if he looked thin and pitiable enough. He was just reaching into Burns' suitcase when a sound, like a low rumble, rolled up from the ground, and the entire tent began to tremble. His brow furrowed in confusion. As he glanced over his shoulder, Dr. Chamberlain came tearing through the camp.

_"Mr. Henderson!"_

Black-clad horsemen were tight on his heels.


End file.
